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Immigration & the American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, a set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. -
Susan B. Anthony
was an American social reformer who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Died: March 13, 1906 -
Civil Service Reform
Civil Service Reform in the U.S. was a major issue in the late 19th century at the national level, and in the early 20th century at the state level. Proponents denounced the distribution of office by the winners of elections to their supporters as corrupt and inefficient. They demanded nonpartisan scientific methods and credential be used to select civil servants. The five important civil service reforms were the two Tenure of Office Acts of 1820 and 1867, Pendleton Act of 1883, the Hatch Acts ( -
Third Parties Politics
The term third party is used in the United States for any and all political parties in the United States other than one of the two major parties (Republican Party and Democratic Party). The term can also refer to independent politicians not affiliated with any party at all and to write-in candidates.
1828–1832 -
Indian Removal
was signed into law by Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. Died: August 11, 1919 -
Manifest Destiny
In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was the widely held belief in the United States that American settlers were destined to expand throughout the continent. begun in the 1840's -
Eugene V. Debbs
Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States. Died: October 20, 1926 -
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks. Died: March 13, 1938 -
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr. was an American politician, author, naturalist, soldier, explorer, and historian who served as the 26th President of the United States. Died: January 6, 1919 -
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was a leading American politician from the 1890s until his death. He was a dominant force in the populist wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as the Party's candidate for President of the United States. Died: July 26, 1925 -
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was a pioneer American settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. Died: May 21, 1935 -
Urbanization & Industrialization
1890 Business and industrialization centered on the cities. The ever increasing number of factories created an intense need for labor, convincing people in rural areas to move to the city, and drawing immigrants from Europe to the United States. As a result, the United States transformed from an agrarian to an urban nation, and the demographics of the country shifted dramatically. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and 5 years of continuous residence on that land. -
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. -
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. 1870-1920 -
Gilded Age
n United States history is the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. The term was coined by writer Mark Twain in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, (1873), which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding. -
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr., was an American author who wrote nearly 100 books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle. Died: November 25, 1968 -
Haymarket Riot
was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilia -
Daws Act
"An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations," known as the Dawes Act, emphasized severalty, the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as members of tribes. -
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush, the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, the Canadian Gold Rush, and the Last Great Gold Rush, was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. -
Political Machines
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses, who receive rewards for their efforts. -
Muckraker
The term muckraker refers to reform-minded journalists who wrote largely for all popular magazines and continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting; muckrakers often worked to expose social ills and corporate and political corruption. -
Initiative, Referendum, Recall
In political terminology, the initiative is a process that enables citizens to bypass their state legislature by placing proposed statutes and, in some states, constitutional amendments on the ballot. The first state to adopt the initiative was South Dakota in 1898. Since then, 23 other states have included the initiative process in their constitutions, the most recent being Mississippi in 1992. That makes a total of 24 states with an initiative process. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
was the first of a series of significant consumer protection laws enacted by the Federal Government in the twentieth century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Its main purpose was to ban foreign and interstate traffic in adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products, and it directed the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry to inspect products and refer offenders to prosecutors. -
16th Amendment
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration. -
Dollar Diplomacy
1913 Taft shared the view held by Knox, a corporate lawyer who had founded the giant conglomerate U.S. Steel, that the goal of diplomacy was to create stability and order abroad that would best promote American commercial interests. Knox felt that not only was the goal of diplomacy to improve financial opportunities, but also to use private capital to further U.S. interests overseas. “Dollar diplomacy” was evident in extensive U.S. interventions in the Caribbean and Central America, especially -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures. -
Federal Reserve Act
is an Act of Congress that created and set up the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States of America, and granted it the legal authority to issue Federal Reserve Notes (now commonly known as the U.S. Dollar) and Federal Reserve Bank Notes as legal tender. The Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. -
18th Amendment
effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring illegal the production, transport and sale of alcohol (though not the consumption or private possession). -
Suffrage
the right to vote in political elections. -
19th Amendment
ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920. -
Tea Pot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1920 to 1923, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Fall was later convicted -
Populism & Progressivism
In the late 19th to early 20th century, the ideas of populism and progressivism weren’t that well understood as opposed to how much the people knew about the existence of the democrats and republicans. Nevertheless, the populism and progressivism campaigns were all implanted to initiate national progress. -
Nativisim
the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants.
